The White House has approved the state of emergency in Florida and ordered federal assistance in advance of Hurricane Milton. The relief will be handled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Milton is currently a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to make landfall on the West Coast of Florida on Wednesday. FEMA is running evacuation shuttles and hosting residents in shelters, which can be found here.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ordered all tolls to be suspended as traffic builds up in evacuation routes. Other state preparations for state and local services can be found here.
The Weather Channel predicts that the storm will gain strength today and possibly “weaken gradually on approach to Florida because of increasing wind shear and dry air.” That weakening “won’t reduce the impacts we see from Milton, including storm surge and destructive winds. Milton will also grow larger on approach to Florida, allowing its wind, storm surge and rainfall impacts to sprawl out across a bigger area.”
